June 2, 2023
Odessa (Denise Esteban) had been accepted as a scholar at a ballet school in Manila. Unfortunately, she had an injury that had her sidelined for a long time while she recovered. The doctor said she could never dance ballet again, and the school let her go. Her roommates at the boarding house Doray (Arah Alonzo) and Kits (Erika Balagtas) invited her to check out their job as sexy dancers at the swanky Lake Side nightclub.
At the club, Odessa immediately caught the eye of Prince (Arron Villaflor), son of the owner Queenie (Geleen Eugenio). He taught her how sexy dancing onstage is the art of seduction and "mini-shocks" to reinvigorate men in the audience from their mundane lives. Odessa quickly became popular among the clients of the club. However, one day, the former star dancer of the club, Giselle (Rose Van Ginkel), suddenly reappeared to reclaim her throne.
As the opening credits were being shown as the story of Odessa's life-changing accident was onscreen, it was surprising to see a number of critically-acclaimed female filmmakers involved in this new Vivamax sizzler. They are: Anna Isabelle Matutina (director of "12 Weeks") for editing, Joy Aquino (director of "Kitty K7" and "Us Again") for cinematography, and Pam Miras (director of "Pascalina" and "Medusae") for writing the script and direction.
The accident that Odessa had ended her ballet dreams seemed to have caused a foot injury according to the flashback. However later, she described her injury as an ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) tear, which should then be a knee problem. She got kicked out of ballet school for this ACL injury, yet when she was training for her sexy dancing at the club, it was her knees which had a intensive workout with all the twerking she had to do.
The rather misogynistic story was quite old-hat and commonplace. A girl was forced into the flesh trade for the sake of earning a quick buck. A girl came crawling back to the man she left behind to pursue her dream, but went bust. Two girls had a catfight over a man who seemed to only be good in bed and nothing else. Then came a nebulous happy ending that came from out of nowhere -- was this supposed to be an emancipating feminist message?
I cannot begin to guess what pretentious reason director Miras had in mind when she subdivided her film with segment titles of Sergei Eisenstein's "Battleship Potemkin" (1925) -- "Man and Maggots, "Drama on the Deck," "A Dead Man Calls Out," "The Odessa Steps" and "One Against All". Aside from the wheelchair rolling down a flight of stairs referring to the classic scene of a baby carriage rolling down the Odessa Steps, I did not really see any other connection. 4/10.
No comments:
Post a Comment